


bluebells, bluebirds, and blue skies

by oorrrt



Series: alive, with closed eyes [5]
Category: ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Keonhee Appreciation, M/M, crack with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 02:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21067244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oorrrt/pseuds/oorrrt
Summary: Geonhak notices, the first time he hugs Keonhee, how oddly fragile the younger boy seems.  Like if he squeezed him a little too tightly, he’d shatter from the inside out.He imagines the headlines.Oneus' Lee Keonhee, 21, Dead by Hug.





	bluebells, bluebirds, and blue skies

**Author's Note:**

> ao3 stats: people seem to like explcit fic and hwanjo and xido
> 
> me: noted! *writes this*

Geonhak notices, the first time he hugs Keonhee, how oddly fragile the younger boy seems. Like if he squeezed him a little too tightly, he’d shatter from the inside out.

He imagines the headlines. _Oneus’ Lee Keonhee, 21, Dead by Hug. _ Cracking like a sheet of glass. Splintering, the way ice does when suddenly doused in warm water.

Keonhee himself doesn’t seem to notice this. He throws himself around like he has some lives to spare.

Geonhak doesn’t really know how to tell him to be careful. “Hey, please stop being so careless, I’m afraid you’ll break?” Keonhee would probably tell everyone else on the spot, make fun of him for days.

So instead, Geonhak hugs him even tighter when he can, because maybe he’s the only one that knows this, and if he slowly applies more pressure over time Keonhee’s body will get used to it, get stronger. That’s definitely how bodies work, and that’s definitely a rational thought to have.

Also, it’s not like the other members could say anything about it. Or he’d bring up how Youngjo won’t stop kissing everyone on the neck, or how Seoho habitually hides himself from everything like an actual rodent, or how Dongju thinks his stuffed toy came to life and sewed itself back together, or just how many damn photos of Dane Dehaan Hwanwoong has saved on his phone.

Geonhak’s definitely the most normal of them all.

Keonhee fundamentally misunderstands Geonhak’s intentions. Geonhak’s just trying to make sure Keonhee stays alive.

Keonhee seems to think he’s just a cuddler.

“It’s okay, hyung,” he says on their way home, reaching across the aisle of the van to hold Geonhak’s hand, “you don’t have to pretend you’re not a big, touchy softy.”

Geonhak’s not a _softy. _ He’s a muscle-man at his core. Yeah, maybe he’s touchy, but it’s mostly with Hwanwoong and Dongju because they’re both just little babies.

Keonhee is, unfortunately, not little. So he doesn’t have that excuse.

“I’m not a softy,” he complains.

“Geonhakie-hyung’s a softy,” Dongju sing-songs from the front.

Geonhak grimaces. “I’m not a softy,” he repeats.

Keonhee grins and pokes his cheek. Geonhak swats his hand away, which just makes Keonhee poke harder. “Okay, you’re not a softy,” he laughs. “You just like to hug me all the time, and cuddle! Which is all fine because I like hugging you too.”

“I don’t like hugging you.”

“Oh?” Keonhee looks at him, cocky, one eyebrow raised the way he’s been practicing for their performances.

Geonhak tries to explain. “You’re like, a raw noodle. And I’m cooking you.”

The van erupts. Suddenly _everyone _has something to say, and Hwanwoong’s laughing so hard he’s started sobbing, and Geonhak can’t make anyone’s words out.

“All of you _shut up!” _he roars, which just gets everyone rolling again.

(In his defense, the noodle comment made sense to him at the time. A raw noodle just snaps, all hard and brittle and breakable. A cooked noodle bends. Hugging Keonhee is like…pouring energy into him. Geonhak learned it in high school, how some kind of energy can become heat, which is also energy, and if he gives Keonhee energy, it can change to heat energy, like cooking. He doesn’t remember the details. For the rest of the night he imagines Keonhee boneless, literally boneless, slithering on the ground like a soggy wig traveling down the street in a river of rain.)

Seoho’s laughter rings loudly through the entire salon.

“Doraemon! Your Doraemon transformation’s complete now! You’re one with Doraemon!” He cackles so loudly Geonhak’s tempted to break his vocal cords. It’s really such a shame he’s a good singer, and having his neck intact is good for the group.

Keonhee, on the receiving end of Seoho’s teasing, looks like the poster child for an anti-bullying campaign, all pitiful and small-looking.

“Shut up, hyung,” Geonhak says from the couch with as much authority as he can muster. Seoho stops yelling, but the snickering persists.

“Geonhakie-hyung!’ Keonhee cries, running up to him. His big eyes are open wide, his even bigger mouth set in a huge pout. “Geonhakie-hyung, do I look like Doraemon?”

Geonhak takes a good look at him. With the newly-blue hair a little tousled, he looks kind of…magical. Like he’s the singular point of color in a dying small town, and he’d take his love interest on a sweeping adventure where they discover the meaning of life in small, meaningless things.

“Yeah,” Geonhak says. “Can you do the Doraemon voice?”

Keonhee wails.

Lately, Lee Keonhee’s been looking a little…pretty.

Geonhak vows never to tell him this. Saying it out loud would just make his recent concerns worse.

His recent concerns: he’s been dreaming about Keonhee. _Cheesy _dreams. First-date-ice-cream-summer-romance-meet-cute-fall-in-love-dreams.

He’s starting to form a habit of mentally screaming whenever he enters a room to see if anyone flinches – if anyone there can read his mind. Because, not to be dramatic, but he’s planning on taking these dreams with him to his grave.

The blue hair always features in these dreams, somehow even bluer than blue, a concentrated burst of the most vibrant of blues that blinds Geonhak, dyes the edges of his vision.

Blue. Geonhak googles whether people are inherently just attracted to people with blue hair, and this is just an instinct he’s riding, nothing more than the animalistic whims of the brain and body.

There are a few articles about women with blue hair getting hit on more by strange men. Articles about desirable, life-changing women in media with blue hair.

Geonhak refuses to think of himself as a strange, creepy man that depends on quirky blue-haired people to change his life. Also, Keonhee’s not a woman.

Maybe Geonhak’s just personally really into the color blue. His favorite track on the album is _Blue Sky. _ He could just subconsciously be so into the color blue that he’s projecting attraction onto Keonhee.

Last night he dreamt they’d gone on a picnic, just the two of them and a basket full of cookies that looked like the moon, sitting on a picnic blanket the color of Keonhee’s hair, the trees around them full of bluebirds, the grass covered in hyacinth and bluebells, the sky stretching so wide and bright above them, and Keonhee had clutched his arm the way he likes to do, and they flew up, up into all that blueness–

Damn these dreams.

It’s not that Geonhak’s a stranger to weird dreams. Just last month he dreamt that he married JYP and Youngjo couldn’t stop crying from the front row. But the Keonhee dreams are different, they’re embarrassing, they’re doomed to be secrets forever.

Because one day, he woke up, wishing his dream were true.

When Geonhak finally gets home, just a few hours before the sunrise, he doesn’t expect to see Keonhee passed out on the couch. His limbs are everywhere, one leg falling off the side, the other thrown over the armrest. His arms? Geonhak can’t even tell what’s going on.

He walks up and gently shakes Keonhee awake. If that doesn’t get him up, Geonhak can just carry him to bed. He’s feeling a little soft today.

Keonhee moans, voice rough with sleep. Geonhak swallows hard.

He manhandles Keonhee into a sitting position for something to do with his hands. Keonhee clutches onto his shirt, pulls him down onto the couch to sit next to him. Geonhak technically could pull Keonhee’s graspy hands off of him; he’s stronger, he’s _awake_. He doesn’t.

“Hyung,” Keonhee whispers, half-lucid, leaning against Geonhak’s shoulder, “have you ever…_yearned _for something?”

Geonhak hums in thought. He doesn’t consider himself much of a yearner. “Yearned?” he asks, to dodge the question.

“Yearning. Longing? Like, my heart is just…calling out for something so earnestly, and it…it doesn’t know if it can ever have it.” Keonhee snuggles harder. “You know?”

Geonhak thinks about the weight of Keonhee’s head on his shoulder, his radiating warmth, the custard-like timbre of his voice. “No,” he says. _Liar, _the voice inside his head chimes in helpfully.

“Oh,” Keonhee says, and sits up.

“Sorry,” Geonhak mumbles. For a moment, he wonders what would happen if he let himself talk about everything he feels. How he’s been afraid to yearn for anything, because everyone deserts you, everything ends eventually. But Keonhee’s voice rings constantly through his thoughts with no hint of ever leaving.

He wonders what would happen if he pulled Keonhee’s head back down onto his shoulder and held him tighter than he’s ever held anyone before and never let him go.

_“God,” _Keonhee breathes, “what do you do when you want something so desperately and you can’t have it?”

“What…” Geonhak looks up and their eyes lock. And he’s been told he has an intimidating stare, but by god, under Keonhee’s sleepy gaze he feels like he’s shrinking. “…what are you yearning for?” he asks, hesitant, wishing for something he can’t name.

Keonhee throws himself back onto the sofa, groaning. A little too sensually. He takes a deep breath.

“Italian pizza,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> okay fine dane dehaan was pretty in kill your darlings
> 
> come visit me on [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/oorrrt) to wax poetic about 1us rarepairs or tell me what kind of fics u wanna see <3
> 
> (edit: or my new [twitter](http://twitter.com/keonfeet)!)


End file.
